


Ceaselessly

by NotEvenThat



Series: Introspective Magnus Drabbles [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Alec is a supportive boyfriend, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood Drinking, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Memories, Past Magnus Bane, The Immortality Issue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-02 02:30:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11499894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotEvenThat/pseuds/NotEvenThat
Summary: Sometimes, Magnus loses himself in his memories but Alec is always there to hold him, until he comes back.





	Ceaselessly

Magnus couldn’t remember when it started happening. When the years started blending together.. When the memories started to overlap on one another. He tried to push it away, always. He drank enough alcohol that even the magic in his body that was burning it off couldn’t keep up. He danced until his legs felt like they would give out under him. He had sex with so many people that it became monotonous, just motions, fleeting feelings that didn’t even calm the screaming in his mind. 

He could never out run it for long, though. Eventually, he had to drop. Eventually, the alcohol would stop bringing him higher, stop making him feel lighter and just start making him feel more and more unsteady. The kisses stopped feeling like distracts and just started feeling like lips and teeth. 

At the end of it all, Magnus was left sitting there, thinking of people he’d never see again, of faces that were long since dead, memories whose details were faded and frayed and wondering, why on earth creatures that lived as long as warlocks did had been created in the first place. 

He’d turn and catch the eyes of a lover who he hardly remembered the name of, turning around the corner. The people on the street below him stopped sounding like real people and they became the piercing laughter of Etta and Charles, as the three of them walked home, tripping on their own feet and the perfectly tailored clothes that wrapped them. The whiskey in his hands tasted nothing like the hard liquor he wanted. Suddenly, it was the tea that Abiel had brewed for him in the sixteen hundreds, when Magnus had been nothing but a boy. It was the blood that he’d sipped from Camille's glass as he watched her drain the mundane before them, the bitterness of uncomfort resonating more than the metallic taste of the liquid. It was Ragnor’s favorite wine from that one store in Delhi, India. 

On nights like that, Magnus would lose himself in his own mind. He’d see things that weren’t there and stay lost in his own mind for hours, reliving the worst, best and… Mundane moments of his life. He’d look in the mirror and see a Magnus staring back at him that looked nothing like himself. 

A Magnus dressed completely in Victorian Era clothes. A Magnus standing in the 1920’s, trying makeup for the first time. A Magnus standing in Ragnor’s house, wearing perhaps the only clean clothes he’d ever had before. A Magnus standing in the Great Palace of Thailand, wrapped in traditional robes, sprawled out a majestic bed. A Magnus standing on the bow of a ship, wrapped in salt covered fabric and loving it. 

Before, Magnus would lose himself and that was it. He’d open his eyes hours, days later and realize that he hadn’t eaten. He’d fall asleep only to wake up, not sure if he had been asleep at all. He’d sit for hours, not even sure if he was blinking. 

Now though, Alexander was there. 

They both lived very busy lives. Alec was head of the Institute and he was gone so often that they struggled to make time when neither of them were exhausted from work but somehow, he was always there on nights like that. He’d wrap Magnus up on the couch, press warm cups of tea into his hands and hold him close until he came back to him. For a long time, he didn’t even know what it was. Only that sometimes, Magnus couldn’t seem to pull himself from his head. 

Then, Magnus started talking to him about it. He’d open his mouth and just say, “Did you know water use to taste differently?” Or, “Did I ever tell you that Ragnor was the one who found me? After I killed my step father?” Or sometimes even just, “I can’t stop thinking about Etta.” 

Sometimes, they’d whisper quietly. Magnus telling Alec all about the different lives he’d lived. It wasn’t always easy, though. At first, Magnus wouldn’t tell him when he was thinking about someone else, a past lover. He was terrified that Alec was going to doubt their love because of it. He was terrified that Alec was going to think that every time they kissed, Magnus was just dreaming about someone who was long gone now. 

Yet, Alec never minded. He’d just pull Magnus closer and whisper, “Tell me about her.” And Magnus would. 

He told him about how they agreed to go dancing and Magnus had spent the next three days learning to dance for the first time. He told him about the makeup she wore and how bright and vibrant it was and how the camera’s back then never captured it. He told him about the first time they’d gone home together and how Magnus had woken up in the morning with red lipstick cover his face. 

He told him about Camille and how beautiful she had looked on the night that they first met. He told him about every horrible thing that Camille had convinced him to do and he told him about he had done it so  _ easily _ because he had loved her. 

And eventually, on a very dark night, he whispered that someday he was going to be sitting there, telling someone else about Alec but even that was okay because Alec pulled him closer whispered back that he couldn’t think of a more perfect place to spend eternity than Magnus’s head.  

Someday, that wasn’t going to make him feel better but today, it did. 

**Author's Note:**

> I've now made my introspective Magnus drabbles a series because I always seem to come back to writing them. Magnus Bane, the only character that makes me want to write about him with absolutely no plot whatsoever.


End file.
